peterdmar's Full Review: Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth Headset
This is my review on the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth Wireless Headset. In order to comply with the new law about cell phone use and driving, I bought this Bluetooth headset to use with my new cell phone. Except for minor glitches, the headset is relatively comfortable to wear and use. It uses a single button for all functions, moved to button up for more volume and down for less volume. After pairing with your phone, to turn on just press the button down until you hear the first beat and to use voice dial press and hold until you hear two beeps and wait until you hear a beat before speaking what you have recorded in the phone book. Depending on your phone, you would hear what you have recorded being played prior to dialing the party. Although, with my phone sometimes it may dial the wrong party in the phone book occasionally and cannot be completely trusted. By using it as totally hands-free, may not be such a good idea because of this problem. But it does come in handy when you're unable to read your phone books list on your phone's LCD screen in bright sunlight outdoors, by simply scrolling up or down on your phone books list until you hear the recording of the party you want to dial. While holding the phone in your hand, you can use the voice dial feature. If the phone makes a mistake and select the wrong party, at least you can stop the phone from dialing by pressing the hangup button. Unfortunately, either this headset or my phone doesn't support stopping voice dialing when you have change your mind or when you know it's the wrong party that's been dialed. Otherwise the voice quality is quite good on this headset when in moderate noise conditions. Being a relatively inexpensive headset, it doesn't have very good noise canceling features. To answer a phone call, just pushed the button on the headset briefly and to hang up press the button the same way. The phone call can be transfer to the phone's headset by pressing the Bluetooth headset button for more than one second. You will hear a high tone followed by a low tone. The phone has to be open for the transfer to occur. To switch back to the Bluetooth headset, press the button on the Bluetooth headset briefly. You you will hear a high tone. To turn on the Bluetooth headset, press and hold the button until you hear the mid-tone before releasing. And to turn off, press and hold the button until you hear a high tone followed by a low tone followed by the mid-tone before releasing the button. To activate last number redial, double short key press. You will hear a high tone for each key press.
The headset is relatively comfortable to wear all day. The nice feature with this particular type of headset that it doesn't totally block the hearing in that ear with the headset. The unit hooks around your ear with a rubber piece that sits on the lower edge of your outer ear canal. With much lower power level then the cell phone itself, the radiation level with a headset is perhaps safer to use over a prolonging period in my opinion. Also, when the headset is idle it's more than likely that radiation level is even lower than when in use in a phone call.
Charging this Bluetooth headset usually takes about an hour or so with the included charger. Although, to assure a full charge it doesn't hurt to charge it longer. The headset was relatively easy to pair with the phone. Make sure the Bluetooth headset is off, press the button for 6 seconds or so. Release the button when the light indicator flashes blue and red. The headset is now ready to pair with your phone. Now set the phone to enter pairing mode and select "320 Plantronics" on the display. When the phone asked for a password, enter "0000". The phone will now be pair with this Bluetooth headset.
The battery life on this Bluetooth headset allows for up to 10 hour talk time and up to 240 hours standby according to the claim by Plantronics on a full charge. This Bluetooth headset has battery charge indicator built in. When you turn on the Bluetooth headset, the indicator light will flash corresponding to the charge level in the battery. Three flashes for full charge, two flashes for two thirds charge and a single flash for one third charge. But unfortunately on most Bluetooth headset the lithium ion battery is not replaceable. And this one is no exception, so when the battery dies it is as good as trash. Since the lithium ion batteries usually last about three years at most, this isn't ecological friendly to the environment. Like the phones themselves, the manufacturers should make more Bluetooth headsets with replaceable batteries.
I will update this review as I learned more about this product in the future.
Enjoy affordable, easy-to-use wireless freedom for bluetooth phones with the Plantronics Explorer 320 earset. It s comfortable enough to wear all day,...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Over-the-ear wireless cell phone headset is convenientCell phone accessory features over-the-ear attachmentHands free device has bluetooth technologyM...More at Overstock.com
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